


endless sea of stars

by TheJenMonster



Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Insomnia, M/M, Nightmares, mando needs to learn how to use his words right
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-01-03
Packaged: 2021-04-21 17:09:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22097602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheJenMonster/pseuds/TheJenMonster
Summary: He fought the sleep that threatened his weary eyes. Twenty six hours was a very long time to be awake, and now that he was settled in the embrace of his cockpit, his safe space and place of comfort, the exhaustion violently pulled at his eyelids. With a sigh, he let his body win the battle, and fell asleep in the cradle of his seat....Or at least, he did, until the warning systems started screaming.
Relationships: Corin the Stormtrooper (Rescue and Regret)/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Comments: 13
Kudos: 288





	endless sea of stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LadyIrina](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyIrina/gifts).

Din could not remember the last time he had an actual, honest-to-goodness restful bit of sleep. Even before he became a refugee running from the last scraps of the scattered Empire, sleep came in short bursts and fits. After taking the child under his care, sleep became even more sparse. Between keeping an attentive eye for unwanted company, and making sure the child didn’t do something as stupid as sticking his hands into the exposed wires within the panels of the  _ Razor Crest _ , the mere concept of surrendering to unconsciousness left him horribly anxious.

One would think that the arrival of Corin would give him some semblance of relief. After all, with another adult man on the crew, the both of them could trade off their watches and share the workload of raising an infant and making a living under the noses of those who want them dead.

Nope.

If anything, Corin was  _ worse _ than the child. Corin had a heart of gold, and the self-preservation of an absolute  _ moron _ . He carelessly threw himself into the worst of situations, into the middle of gunfire and the hands of men who wouldn’t think twice about breaking him. His self-esteem was rock bottom, and he consistently functioned with the attitude that his life was disposable, that his only purpose was to trade himself for the lives of both the child (which was  _ not _ okay), and Din (which was definitely, most certainly, one-hundred-and-ten-percent  _ not okay _ ).

One of these days, Corin will actually get himself killed, and when that day comes, Din will be  _ destroyed _ .

In the quiet stretches of nothing, during the long journey between planetary systems, Din barely slept. Even upon Corin’s insistence that he could take charge for a few scant hours, that the child would be fine under his care and that Din would be alerted the moment something fishy came up on the radar, Din refused to sleep. He would lie awake in his cot, or occupy his hands with weapons maintenance, or pace about the belly of his ship, looking for any little thing to fix or clean, before slipping into the cockpit.

In those bits of time when he actually did sleep, sometimes, more frequently in recent days than before, terrible dreams flared to life. Flashes of images haunted him when his eyes closed, every time of a different flavor.

Before, it was mostly the dark, the slamming of metal cellar doors, claustrophobia, muted explosions, and faceless battle droids.

After the acquisition of the child, the dreams became various scenarios of the babe’s kidnapping. Some were of the day he surrendered the child, others were of what-ifs and violent ambushes by strangers, mercenaries, or the Imperials (with the wild, terrified  _ screeching _ of the child yanking him back to the waking world).

With Corin, the scenarios that his unconscious mind fabricated were seemingly  _ endless _ . Blaster fire was the most common, stabbing the next, always dramatically into the softness of his stomach or his unprotected head. Another was falling; down ravines, into endless depths of water, even once into the vacuum of space. There was one such dream where he was just…  _ gone _ , as if he were never there, but the heartache of his absence still very real.

Some - maybe most - of these nightmares faded as soon as he woke. There would be days when he would wake panicked and not even remember why. Meanwhile, there were a few that were carved into his eyes, bloody scenarios that would not fade no matter how long he stared at both Corin and the child, alive, breathing, eating, speaking, laughing…

The most recent nightmare, vivid and memorable, happened in the belly of the  _ Razor Crest _ , with both Corin and the child still and cold on the hard metal floor. Din had refused to sleep for more than a full standard day afterwards (twenty six hours, to be precise). He searched for any and all excuses to not lay back down, even though they were still in the black of space, still days from their next destination. This resulted in absolutely  _ nothing _ for his restless hands to do.

Even with his insistence that he was fine, that he was not that  _ tired _ and was more than capable of keeping vigil up in the cockpit, Corin kept on bothering him, urging him,  _ begging _ him to lay back to rest, just a short nap, maybe even for  _ just a half hour, Mando, please, when did you last sleep? You’re worrying me _ .

In not his proudest moment, he turned and  _ tore _ into Corin. He remembered very little of what happened, of what words were said, only that his voice was raised not in volume, but in ferociousness. Corin tried to interrupt once, twice, but both times Din bowled over him like the mudhorn on Arvala-7. After what could have a few minutes or a half hour, Din finished his rant with a harsh, sharp, finality of, “ _ Leave me alone! _ ”

Silence rang in the cargo hold. Corin, who matched Din in height, shrank small, shoulders hunched to his ears and his chin tucked towards his chest. His eyes pointed down at their boots, and his teeth bit  _ hard _ into his lower lip, hard enough to turn the pink flesh a stark white.

“I’m sorry,” Corin murmured.

No, Din was the one who should apologize. But, he didn’t. He merely nodded, curt and short, and climbed up to the cockpit.

(There was no sign of the child in the cargo bay, nor up in the cockpit. He pointedly ignored that.)

The quiet hum of the cockpit enveloped him like a weighted blanket. The systems showed him that everything was stable and normal. A part of him wanted to disengage the autopilot and take over flying manually, but ultimately he decided not to.

He tried to flip through star charts to keep his mind alert. He pinched his thigh to stop his vision from unfocusing, but the words kept shaking and blurring, and he couldn’t even tell which solar systems he was browsing through because the text would not stop  _ moving _ .

He fought the sleep that threatened his weary eyes. Twenty six hours was a very long time to be awake, and now that he was settled in the embrace of his cockpit, his safe space and place of comfort, the exhaustion violently pulled at his eyelids. With a sigh, he let his body win the battle, and fell asleep in the cradle of his seat.

...Or at least, he did, until the warning systems started  _ screaming _ .

Red proximity lights flashed blindly, and screeching alarms yelled about…  _ something _ incoming -- but, they were  _ lightyears _ away from any solar system, and there were no asteroid fields anywhere near them --

The ship violently jerked, and, if possible, the alarms screamed even louder.

Corin scrambled up into the cockpit in a panic, the child held tight into his chest. “What-- What’s happening?” he yelled over the alarms. Din flipped through every switch, trying to override the systems and steer the ship around to find out  _ what the fuck was happening _ .

“I don’t know!” he uselessly yelled back.

Their answer loomed over them barely a second later, impossibly large and just-- just  _ impossible _ .

Corin said what Din refused to believe.

“Is that a star destroyer?”

“We are stuck in its tractor beam!” Din cried out. His attempts to escape were in vain, and they were swallowed by the massive beast of the ship.

Din’s fists slammed into the dashboard. He flew out of the seat and pushed past Corin. “Suit up,” he growled.

“Mando, no, we’re doomed! That’s a  _ star destroyer! _ We can’t shoot ourselves out of that! They’re going to kill us the moment they get that hatch open!” Corin followed Din down into the cargo bay. The child was strangely quiet.

“I’m not letting them get us without a fight.” He swung around to face Corin, and Corin nearly walked into him. “Since when did that scrappy Empire of yours still have star destroyers, huh?”

Wait. Wait, no, that’s not right. That’s not the right thing to say. That had to be panic skewing his tongue.  _ Take it back, take it back! _

Corin’s eyes hardened. “I don’t know. I never knew that the  _ Empire of mine _ still possessed something of that magnitude. I apologize,  _ sir _ , I never thought to ring them up and ask. Hang on, I think I can ask them if the Emperor still alive, maybe exiled at a beachside resort--”

“Shut  _ up! _ ” The arsenal locker flew open (when did he open it? He’d never looked away from Corin’s furious, cold glare). He shoved a rifle and several grenades into Corin’s open arms. He must have hid the child while Din was not looking. “Take whatever else you need. I am not letting them take us without a fight.”

Din grabbed his own selection of weapons, all randomly chosen, some of which he didn’t remember owning. It didn’t matter, because he needed everything he had (even if he knew that they weren’t making it out alive).

The rear hatch opened, and blaster fire rained on them. They both found cover and returned fire. Within moments, the first wave of Troopers were down. The next wave followed immediately after.

“We can’t keep doing this!” Corin yelled, an indeterminate amount of time later. No matter how many Troopers were gunned down, more kept coming. And coming. And coming. Their fallen bodies failed to block the hatch.

Din thought they were doing just fine, and he told Corin so.

Corin then yelled, “I’m going in!”

“No, you don’t!” Din yelled back. “You’re staying right there!”

“I can’t, and you know it! I’m one of them, so I have to go in!”

“No, you’re  _ not! _ Corin, no,  _ please _ ,  _ don’t go! _ ” But Corin did not listen, and he stepped out, straight into the firefight.

Somehow, miraculously (or maybe not miraculously, because Troopers had terrible aim), Corin did not get hit, not once. He pushed past the wall of Troopers, and disappeared.

“Corin? Corin!” Din bit back a scream of fury and jumped in after him.

It was at that point that his blaster stopped working. He threw it aside and pulled out another one, and when that stopped working, he used it as a blunt force weapon. The butt of the blaster cracked into the weak white helmets, and the bodies cleared out as fast as they came.

But, no matter how far into the ship he went, there was just white - white armor, white walls, white light. There was no Corin, no shock of brown hair against the white white  _ white _ , and when he called out again there was only Corin’s disembodied voice. Din could not decipher what he said.

Wait, no, he could. Corin was asking,  _ begging _ , to stop.

_ Stop, stop, please stop! _

They had him. They wanted him, like they wanted the child, and they had him. They were going to pin him down, torture him, make him beg for mercy or death --

He would never reveal where the child was. He never would. He would rather die than give away ( _ their _ ) small one.

_ No. He can’t let him go. _

By some spur of luck, or maybe it was from a well-placed  _ crack _ against a Trooper’s weak helmet, the blaster started working again. It warmed in his hands, heavy and reliable, and every shot he took met their target. Corin’s cries for help never ceased, and it grew louder, and louder, and it hurt, it  _ ached _ , because Din could not find him, could not find him and save him and drag him back home, where he belonged, always belonged,  _ will always belong _ , among the stars with him, just the two of them and their little green babe --

\-- and suddenly --

\-- a  _ hush _ , soft and deafening, fell around him.

Blasterfire halted, as if a thick cloud of cotton settled around him. The air turned to molasses, and his arms and legs slowed, almost refused to move.

In front of him was a single Trooper, the last one that he had shot point-blank in the head.

This one wasn’t in the standard Storm Trooper garb like the ones around him. This one was outfitted for the cold, in thick, heavy gear and extra padding and layers. A hood engulfed most of the helmet.

He hadn’t seen a Snow Trooper in-- in  _ months _ . Not since the first time he met Corin.

Din surged forward, grabbed the helmet, and tore it off.

Blue eyes, cold and dead, stared back.

And, with an anguished cry --

\-- the walls crashed in.

*

Din jerked awake. His body surged forward, hands blindly waving outward, until his fingers grabbed onto hard metal.

The dashboard.

His cockpit.

He was in his cockpit, in the glow of the small lights of screens and switches and the endless sea of stars.

A strangled cry clawed out his throat, and he suddenly couldn’t  _ breathe _ . The helmet was too tight, too suffocating, and if he didn’t take it off now, he was going to vomit.

The beskar clattered loudly on the ground. With the loss of the helmet came the welcoming gasp of cold oxygen. Din’s chest heaved, hungrily taking in the recycled air. His gloved hands buried into his hair. He folded forward in his chair, willing the churning nausea away from the pit of his stomach.

A scrambling came from behind him.

“Mando? Hey, are you okay? I thought I heard--”

“ _ Stop! _ ” Din cried out, and at that moment, Corin must have seen the beskar helmet on the floor, because he cursed.

“Oh, I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Here, I’ll--” More scrambling. “I-I promise I’m not looking!”

Din looked around his seat, and Corin’s back was turned. His hands covered his face.

Neither man said anything. Neither man moved.

Corin could have easily climbed back down the ladder. Any other man would know to not hang around when a Mandalorian was in such a vulnerable position as he.

It was Corin who broke the silence.

“Are you okay?” His voice was muffled under his hands.

Din was too exhausted to lie. “No. No, I’m not.”

“Oh. I’m sorry. Do you… Do you want me to leave?”

“No.”

Corin gasped. That was not the answer he expected.

Din stood with difficulty, stepped around the helmet, and up to Corin’s back. He was dressed simply in a shirt and trousers. He was without his boots, which meant he had either been lounging or... asleep.

Corin’s body stiffened as Din laid a hand on his shoulder. His forehead followed, and rested on his other shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Din murmured.

“Oh, no, it’s okay--”

“No, it’s  _ not _ okay. It was not okay for me to yell at you like that. I never should have done that to you. It was very rude of me. I'm sorry.”

“Oh, Mando…” Corin’s hand rested on Din’s. “What can I do for you? Is there anything I can do for you? At all?”

_ Don’t leave _ . No matter how desperate he was to beg, the words could not leave his mouth.  _ Stay with me, forever. Please, don’t leave. Don’t go where I can’t follow _ .

They remained standing, in the quiet, within the endless sea of stars.

**Author's Note:**

> i've been a part of ao3 for almost 8 years, participated in many fandoms, written so much stuff, and of course my first fic uploaded here is of these boys. i guess that's pretty rad. :)
> 
> thank you everyone for reading!


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